Trap for reptiles and rats.
p. [86].
I was trudging along one day with my Sakai servant, when at the foot of the hill (Chentok) I saw a little cot and wished to visit it. Inside I found a man. At seeing me he caught up his blow-pipe—a miserable-looking instrument—and his poisoned darts, and was about to run away. I hastily made my companion offer him a few cooked potatoes and a little maize which he accepted without saying a word and began to devour ravenously.
In those brief moments I took stock of the poor creature. He was painfully thin; his skeleton could be clearly seen under the unadorned skin; his sunken eyes gleamed with mistrust and inquietude from out of his fleshless face, and his long black hair lay in tangled masses round his neck.
I had before me the true type of a wild man of the wood, less vivacious and less loquacious than his brother, the ape.
I gave him some tobacco, that he eagerly crammed into his mouth and then, keeping fast hold of his weapon he hurried off, without uttering a single syllable, although I asked him many things in his own tongue.
Neither did he in any way express satisfaction, or gratitude for what he had received but vanished mute, contemptuous and silently into the thickest part of the jungle.
My little Sakai was not so surprised as I at this strange person and his way of proceeding, because he had seen him before and could tell me something about him.
He was known by the name of Alà Lag, or the sorcerer. He had no wife, no children, no friends, and lived quite alone, far from everyone, wandering about the forest, feeding upon wild-honey and the fruit he found upon the ground. If he happened to catch some game he would light up a bit of fire and seem to cook it but in reality he ate it raw. Sometimes he came across a settlement when he would enter the first hut which lay in his way, and by gesture more than by word, would ask for food and after having obtained it, started off again.
The good Sakais pitied the poor vagabond and had often tried to make him stop with them as a brother or a guest but he always resolutely refused whatever proposal they made him and they were of opinion that not even old age would have any effect upon the misanthropy of this poor inoffensive being who isolated himself so obstinately from all his kind.